When word of a surprise new Bob Dylan studio album reached your Wonkette on March 20, we wondered what sort of Actual Hell this record would release, as it is established fact in this first awful decade of the 21st Century that Bob Dylan only releases new studio albums to mark the arrival of another Horseman of the Apocalypse. We’ve been listening to the new record for two days now, and have reached various conclusions, most of which can be summed up like this: JESUS CHRIST THE WHOLE ENTIRE ALBUM IS MEXICAN MUSIC. MORE »

Bob Dylan’s got a new record coming out next month, and you should be terrified. Yes, the dude continues to make great music, but his past two studio albums were also Harbingers of Doom. Love and Theft was about America in flames, and then under water, and it was recorded in 2001 and released on September 11 of that rotten year. His next record, Modern Times, was released in the autumn of 2006 — it was named after a Depression-era Charlie Chaplin movie, as the stock market hit new heights and the housing bubble was just beginning to pop, and it was filled with grim songs of working people losing ground. MORE »

It’s Friday and it’s late August and that means dumb YouTube videos, like this one of Russ Feingold imitating fellow Jewish midwesterner Bob Dylan and his famous “Subterranean Homesick Blues” video. The alley looks good, but it’s missing Alan Ginsburg standing in a trash can. RIP Paul Wellstone, in other words. Also it’s just not as awesome as this, but few things are.

• Liz Smith: Reading about Wednesday’s screening of Woody Allen’s latest, Scoop, we learned that Capote director Bennett Miller may make a Bob Dylan music video with Scarlett Johansson. [NYP]
• Reliable Source: Bob Casey Jr. returns a $2,100 campaign contribution from Dan Savage because of “the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.” The Casey campaign took the money, invited Savage to a fundraiser, then changed their minds. [WP]
• Page Six: Ex-Paris Review Editor James Linville is making Ernest Hemingway’s elusive The Garden of Eden into a movie. “Linville was a longtime protégé of the Review’s George Plimpton, who himself was mentored by ‘Papa.’” [NYP]
• LA Times Entertainment News: Fake movie “Aquaman” on HBO’s Entourage might become a real movie. “In one of the strangest twists of this life-imitating-art tale, the talent agent at the center of the informal ‘Aquaman’ talks is Ari Emanuel, the brassy Endeavor partner on whom ‘Entourage’ agent Ari Gold is based.” [LAT]